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Browser Recommendations?

In light of the fact that I solved an obvious problem on my own, I figured I'd reuse this thread/save the mods some trouble of deleting it.

I've been using Firefox with Adblock plus for years now, and I'm increasingly loosing my patience with it--it's a whore for memory, for some reason, and it's increasingly useless in blocking pop-ups. If it wasn't for flash blocker and the like, I probably would have dropped it years ago.

I don't need a ridiculous amount of functions, just something that browses well, has a small footprint, doesn't crash with flash, etc. Any recommendations?

I'm a fan of Chrome. I miss some of my Firefox extensions, but Chrome is rather lightweight and doesn't get slower over time like Firefox. It also helps that Flash on Linux didn't bring down the whole browser since older versions of Flash were pretty unstable.

Now I use Chrome on Windows and Linux, and ported the extensions/content scripts I wrote over to Chrome.

I don't know that it'll have a small enough footprint for what you're asking.

I'd argue otherwise, Opera is very good about how much memory it uses. If you have a ton of memory, it uses a ton of memory. If you don't, it doesn't. Opera worked a whole lot better on my old laptop with 256 MB of RAM than any other browsers did.

Also, I vote for Opera. It manages to be more feature rich and customizable than the other browsers right out of the box, faster, and smaller. It has a built in content blocker that everyone claims is significantly inferior to ad-block because it's "a glorified hosts list," and yet the only ads I've seen after setting up fanboy's urlfilter.ini are Google's text ads (and I know the content blocker can be tricked into blocking those too). If it doesn't work for you, go get an extension for it (Not that I've seen any extensions of value in either Fx or Opera). My understanding of Flashblock is that all of it can be mimicked with Opera's existing feature-set.

I don't know that it'll have a small enough footprint for what you're asking.

I'd argue otherwise, Opera is very good about how much memory it uses. If you have a ton of memory, it uses a ton of memory. If you don't, it doesn't. Opera worked a whole lot better on my old laptop with 256 MB of RAM than any other browsers did.

Also, I vote for Opera. It manages to be feature rich, more customizable than the other browsers right out of the box, faster, and smaller.

Opera is crazy. First, it's a full internet suite, like Mozilla, except with a ton more stuff jammed in. But it's tiny and fast; Version 9 ran like a champ on some ancient Pentium 2 laptop with 64mb RAM, and I doubt the system requirements have changed much the past few releases. It has a great built-in download manager. And an (optional) web server (that can tunnel through NAT), which has become my tool of choice for sharing files over instant messaging. The latest version finally has extensions too, although the API looks a lot more limited than Firefox's extension system from what I've seen.

For what I like to use on modern hardware though? Chrome. It's THE ideal browser for dual-screen setups, because you can maximize it and it takes up the whole space (no stupid 1 pixel border at the top like Opera does). It's also the only browser I've used that lets you tear off tabs and reposition them somewhere else on the desktop. Firefox and Opera just open a new window on top of the old one, which is lame in a variety of ways.

When I need to do web development, I do tend to err towards Firefox, just because nothing else I've tried can touch the Firebug plugin.

How does Opera Dragonfly compare to Firebug? I haven't touched Firebug in a long time.

I'm not sure? I compared the two superficially a few months back and went with Firebug because I didn't like how Dragonfly didn't link directly to the place in the script where a Javascript error was. I'm lazy. I also liked how the Network tab in Firebug showed the contents of the request and not just the summary and headers; it's nice for debugging AJAX.
I hear that Dragonfly is supposed to get an update for 1.0 or something soon, so I'll check it out again then.

I was surprised at how nice the Javascript debugger in Internet Explorer was. Occasionally I'll fire up IE just to use that.

Opera's popup blocker can be made so overzealous that even legitimate new windows will not open without your permission. You can also adjust that setting on a per site basis. I default it to blocking absolutely everything and then drop it some on sites that aren't problems.

Opera is pretty good about popups. You can set it so it blocks all popups or just the unwanted ones. The problem with the second setting is sites are getting around this by triggering popups when you click anywhere in the page, which Opera registers as a wanted popup.

I'll put in another vote in favour of Opera. I'm pretty much reliant on some of its built-in features now, like mouse gestures and bookmark syncing, which are never quite as polished in the other browsers.

Although, for development work, Firebug's definitely without equal, so Firefox (sadly) becomes a must.

Quake Matt on December 2010

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SmokeStacksThe Myth, the Legend, the Bowman, the Shambler FuckerRegistered Userregular

I use Opera as well. I don't use mouse gestures, but bookmark syncing is awesome. Speed Dial is basically the coolest thing ever. The built in content blocking ability is also very nice.

Opera Turbo is also a godsend if I'm on a shitty/slow hotspot somewhere, or if I'm in the field and have to rely on 3G.

Every once in a great while I'll come across a website that doesn't display properly in Opera though, but it's always some shitty videogame megasite or terrible blog that is designed around IE. It also doesn't play well with any of the Husdawg stuff, so CYRI and anything that uses the System Requirements Lab software won't work.

Depends on what you mean by best. IE9's full hardware acceleration of everything in the browser if pretty damn nice. IE9's preview 7 also beat the chrome nightly & everything else in speeds tests when it was first released. This is a good thing for all of us.

Mildly off topic, but I don't think I've ever seen so many Opera supporters in one place.

I have but it's not common. It's only in forum sections like this that are more tech inclined. I've been using Opera as a back-up browser for years. I never jumped on the Firefox bandwagon and I don't care for Chrome.

Yeah it will be interesting to see how people try to rip on IE after IE9 is officially released.

Hardware acceleration is wonderful and every browser should do it. Or WebGL. That would also be acceptable.

I expect the IE ripping will continue as long as IE doesn't properly provide HTML5-type stuff supported in other browsers, though. Not that I've been following IE9 development or anything; the last time I took a look at it was several months ago when there was a kerfluffle about how much of some random spec the IE team was actually implementing.

I'd switch to Chrome from Firefox in a second if it had a more robust NoScript like extension. I know you can deactivate all scripts on a page and stuff, but the interface for the feature just doesn't come close to the convince of Firefox's NoScript, at least not when I checked a few months ago. I'd love to be rid of this resource hog though, if anyone knows of similar functionality for another browser I'd love to give it a try.

Example:

That's a menu that pops up when I click the bottom right of the browser, and I'm far to used to blocking unwanted crap to let the functionality go.

I'm a big fan of Opera, and 11 seems to have solved a lot of issues 10 was having with Win7, but I don't know that it'll have a small enough footprint for what you're asking.

11 has been a lot of trouble for me. I'm getting crashes again (3 in the past 3 days; 3 [if that] total for the entire lifespan of 10), without doing anything strenuous.

Some of the features are glossy and have to be taken out; easy enough to do, which is nice.

What I'd really like to see is a trimmed-down version of Opera, or one with more options in the installer - I have no (current) use for the 'whole internet suite' aspect; I just want a browser, thanks.

I pretty much refuse to even try Chrome, as I don't like the name; it installed itself without my permission; and I'm more than comfortable where I am.

Firefox is my back-up browser, and I hate having to do anything with it. Just a headache waiting to happen.

What I'd really like to see is a trimmed-down version of Opera, or one with more options in the installer - I have no (current) use for the 'whole internet suite' aspect; I just want a browser, thanks.

Opera is already the smallest browser around. I just use the browser component; it's easy enough to ignore or disable the rest of it (except for the entires in the uncustomizable menu). I'm not sure that removing the non-browser features would trim much off the total size of the application.

I pretty much refuse to even try Chrome, as I don't like the name; it installed itself without my permission; and I'm more than comfortable where I am.

Chrome is, imho, the best general purpose browser. And I say this as the proud owner of an Opera t-shirt. But it installed itself? Did it piggy-back on some other Google application's installer or something?

I pretty much refuse to even try Chrome, as I don't like the name; it installed itself without my permission; and I'm more than comfortable where I am.

Chrome is, imho, the best general purpose browser. And I say this as the proud owner of an Opera t-shirt. But it installed itself? Did it piggy-back on some other Google application's installer or something?

Yeah, during a Google Earth update.

Didn't even give me an check-box to say 'no, thanks'. It was gone within a few minutes.

I pretty much refuse to even try Chrome, as I don't like the name; it installed itself without my permission; and I'm more than comfortable where I am.

Chrome is, imho, the best general purpose browser. And I say this as the proud owner of an Opera t-shirt. But it installed itself? Did it piggy-back on some other Google application's installer or something?

Yeah, during a Google Earth update.

Didn't even give me an check-box to say 'no, thanks'. It was gone within a few minutes.

Weird. I've definitely had other Google applications ask me if I want to install it, both on PC and Mac, but it's never just installed on its own.

For the moment, I do think it's the best overall browser. A nice balance of simplicity, functionality, and efficiency.

Opera is my primary browser, no problems with 11 at all. Chrome is my secondary browser which I typically end up opening all my Youtube videos in. I haven't tried them in Opera lately, it's just a hold over from 9 when I found that leaving Flash video players open in other tabs would cause Opera's memory usage to freak out.

If that happens with Chrome, all I have to do is close the browser and reopen it later while I have all my primary browsing tabs still open in Opera. I suppose I should start trying Youtube in Opera again, I wonder if the HTML5 player works? Hmm...

I pretty much refuse to even try Chrome, as I don't like the name; it installed itself without my permission; and I'm more than comfortable where I am.

Chrome is, imho, the best general purpose browser. And I say this as the proud owner of an Opera t-shirt. But it installed itself? Did it piggy-back on some other Google application's installer or something?

Yeah, during a Google Earth update.

Didn't even give me an check-box to say 'no, thanks'. It was gone within a few minutes.

Weird. I've definitely had other Google applications ask me if I want to install it, both on PC and Mac, but it's never just installed on its own.

For the moment, I do think it's the best overall browser. A nice balance of simplicity, functionality, and efficiency.

^ Pretty much this. I too would be annoyed if something installed itself without asking (I get annoyed when new software puts a shortcut on my desktop without asking), but I've fallen in love with Chrome. I used to be a staunch Firefox supporter, but I decided to give Chrome a try for a week to see how I liked it and never went back.

While I completely understand being annoyed with Chrome for the install shenanigans, you're doing yourself a disservice by not giving it a shot. Do the "use it for a week" thing and see how it fits.

I'd switch to Chrome from Firefox in a second if it had a more robust NoScript like extension. I know you can deactivate all scripts on a page and stuff, but the interface for the feature just doesn't come close to the convince of Firefox's NoScript, at least not when I checked a few months ago. I'd love to be rid of this resource hog though, if anyone knows of similar functionality for another browser I'd love to give it a try.

This. So much this. Chrome has something called NotScript, but I can't get it to work nearly as well as NoScript. In other words, I am still a Firefox user.